Passings, in passing.

Recent musical losses:
Eugene Record, Chi-Lites lead singer. NYTimes obit here.
Long John Baldry, British white blues shepherd. NYTimes obit here.
Albert Mangelsdorff, German trombonist uber alles. Allaboutjazz.com obit here. Really odd Google-assisted translation of Der Spiegel obit here.

Carrie picks ten.

This is from May, but whatev: SK's Carrie picks ten songs to enjoy
on a fair-weathered Sunday, at Pitchfork. The Dead, Monk, Richard and Linda, Jimi --- all point to their current sound, minus the heaviness, which perhaps is better suited for a Friday afternoon commute home, or a Monday morning windstorm.

Music book deal of limited import, stranded edition.

Via Publishers Marketplace:
Editor Phil Freeman's Marooned: The Next Generation of Desert Island Discs, which spotlights a new generation of music critics as they discuss which single album they'd take to a desert island and why, to Ben Schafer at Da Capo, for release in Spring 2007, by Andrew Stuart at The Stuart Agency. Freeman blogged the news a couple of weeks ago, and includes there the roster of critics he's got lined up, including fellow bloggers John Darnielle, Sasha Frere-Jones, Michaelangelo Matos, Simon Reynolds, Derek Taylor, and, by fiat, Douglas Wolk. (And how about showing Carl Wilson some love? Is it the Canadian thing?) It pains me to say this, but it's an excellent, timely idea, and I wish I'd thought of it. Oh, and Greil Marcus, the original inspiration for this, will pen an intro.

Incidentally, Freeman's book on Miles Davis' electric period comes out in September.

Out of the closet, into the stores: ole!

Time after time, vault-seeker after vault-seeker, how is it no one thinks to look in the god-forsaken closet? The "Coltrane family closet," no less? Wouldn't you start looking in something called the Coltrane family closet?

Ps, Qs.

Don't mind us as we ignore the notion of a news cycle, or regular postings, or coherency:

Nelson George on his blog notes three books of import, including the hottest cultural product in hip hop nation.

To entice listeners to support the station during pledge drives, WFMU has their DJs create custom compilations for pledgers. The incomparable jock behind Give the Drummer Some, world music maven Doug Schulkind, has posted the complete MP3 listing for his 2004 premium comp, Culture Shock. Burn here now.

Derek Taylor, mostly of Bagatellen, reviewed Wadada's lastest at Dusted, of all places. In short, "a puzzling bore," but the review's not.

We thought we'd absorbed all we could on Galangalass MIA, but Jane Dark just dropped a giant fucking exclamation point on the end of this particular discussion, at least in those portions we could understand. If you still care, it's worth the eyeball time.

Whatevs, strangely useful, compiled all Pitchfork 10s and naughts to date. Solid down the middle but squishy on the sides. (I mean, English Settlement? Even XTC made better albums.)

Greg Tate on MJ? Behind it lay the twisted desire for one of the most overexposed and durable artists in pop history to act as if he were still waiting for his 15 minutes. Jackson has spent the last 20 years mostly trying, however absurdly, to warrant a photo-op - concocting a public persona so given over to doing (and contriving) crazed publicity stunts that he lost all sense of proportion between what should be staged for popular consumption and what should not. In so doing, he came to repulse the very audience he'd originally bleached, sutured and shined himself up for - that heartland TV crowd who somehow needed to believe a star of Jackson's stature wanted nothing more than to baby-sit their brats over the weekend. Hell yeah.

Crossing the Dead C with Konono No 1.

Safe to say that this is one of the odder split singles of 2005, and based on the samples, one of the more entertaining, too.